Five Elements of Chinese Medicine

Video Transcript

"SARAH HAUER: Hi. I'm Sarah Hauer. SIG HAUER: And I'm Sig Hauer and we're professional practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. SARAH HAUER: We're here on behalf of Expert Village. SIG HAUER: And welcome to our video. SARAH HAUER: The Five-Element Theory looks at the emotions as corresponding to your organs. So the five elements are the five elements that occur in nature which are fire, earth, metal, water, and wood, and organs correspond to those elements and emotions correspond to those organs. There are many correspondences in this framework of diagnostics, but just to give you an idea of how emotions are a part of health in Chinese medicine, I'd like to show you the five-element correspondences of the emotions to the organs. For example, the lungs, the emotion associated with the lungs is grief, so if you come in and you have a continuing problem with bronchitis or pneumonia or emphysema, we are definitely going to pay attention to the emotional dimension of that. And the wood element, which corresponds to the liver, is one of the organs the emotion associated is anger. And in Chinese medicine the wood element is very important in keeping things moving. The liver is responsible for the free and easy flow of chi throughout the body. So when chi gets stuck, it becomes stagnant and one of the--a common diagnosis in Chinese medicine is liver chi stagnation, and liver chi stagnation can be very uncomfortable. It can cover a wide degree of conditions, but in regard to the emotional aspect, anger can create a stagnation of chi and create a blockage and create a lot of other problems down the road. So, by moving the liver chi, simply by moving the liver chi, it helps people deal with repressed anger, with anger that is existing. People who, after their acupuncture treatment, can report having a--some of the things people have shared with me is that they feel an overall sense of well-being, but some people have described it as a "heavenly experience." And I think part of that is because, finally the stuck Chi is moving freely throughout the body, and that emotional weight, that emotional stagnation is no longer there. Now, this is something that we--you know, it's not a magic bullet, it's not something that happens one time, and you're never going to be angry again. Wouldn't that be lovely? But with continuing acupuncture treatment, if you do have emotional problems with anger or other emotions like anxiety and depression, with continued acupuncture support and herbal support as well, we can keep those channels open, we can keep that Chi moving, and your body will begin to learn a new pattern of responding to situations and you will begin to let go easier, and you will be supported in the psychological work you may be doing with the therapist or on your own."